From the Mouths of Authors

These are thoughts from a few of my favorite authors:

"When people say there is too much violence in my books, what they are saying is there is too much reality in life." - Joyce Carol Oates

"You expect far too much of a first sentence. Think of it as analogous to a good country breakfast: what we want is something simple, but nourishing to the imagination." - Larry McMurtry

"I try, and I think I succeed, in making my readers feel sorry for my psychopaths, because I do." - Ruth Rendell

"[His characters] are always 7 feet tall and invincible, mine are 5 feet 8 and nervous." - Elmer Kelton

"Lots of people want to have written; they don't want to write. In other words, they want to see their name on the front cover of a book and their grinning picture on the back. But this is what comes at the end of a job, not at the beginning." - Elizabeth George

"I used to save all my rejection slips because I told myself, one day I'm going to autograph these and auction them. And then I lost the box." - James Lee Burke

"I consciously try to end my novels at a point where I won't have to wonder about my characters ever again." - Anne Tyler

"I leave out the parts that people skip." - Elmore Leonard

"I have long known that it is part of God's plan for me to spend a little time with each of the most stupid people on earth." - Bill Bryson

"Everybody else is working to change, persuade, tempt and control them. The best readers come to fiction to be free of all that noise." - Philip Roth